Arcades In and Around Great Yarmouth – Part 4: Pleasure Beach, Cherry Tree Holiday Park, Vauxhall Holiday Park & Seashore Holiday Park

Pleasure Beach

 

The Pleasure Beach features the oldest videogames along the seafront.  Whilst there are some cool games, it’s a shame to see so many bordering on unplayable with monitor faults or completely broken.  Sega Rally 2 was switched off, Top Skater and Virtua Cop 3 projection screens were in bad shape, and Tekken 3 and Ridge Racer had monitor issues.  In fact the Ridge Racer cabinet was running with a monitor fault on my last visit over two years ago!  On a more positive note it was nice to see The Simpsons still running after all these years.

 

 

 

There used to be an OutRun sit down cabinet next to the Sega Rally, but it disappeared a couple of years ago.

 

Hidden out of sight were two sorry looking Naomi Universal cabinets, somebody should save these!

 

Parkdean  Cherry Tree Holiday Park – Burgh Castle

 

I was chuffed when I came across Chase H.Q. 2 at Luton Airport, little did I know there was one virtually on my door step!  Strangely this cabinet had a few cosmetic differences.  I really enjoy this game, its loads of fun.  This time I made it to the third stage, pursuing the wanted criminal on a race track whilst trying to avoid incoming cars.  Why they didn’t call the race off remains a mystery!  My wife played a credit whilst I filmed, so a big thanks to the wife and her gaming skills!

 

 

Vauxhall Holiday Park

 

 

 

 

A nice selection of games, all fully working.  Highlights were the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade and Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga 20 Year Reunion cabinet, which has clearly had a lot of play!

 

 

 

Seashore Holiday Park

Arcades in the North East

I recently stayed in South Shields for a couple of days, a coastal town at the mouth of the River Tyne.

 

South Shields – Ocean Beach Pleasure Park

As luck would have it this amusement park was a mere two minute walk from my hotel.  The first stop was Dunes arcade.  It was mostly gambling and redemption machines, but they did have Mach Storm and Mario Kart Arcade GP 2. 

I walked through the amusement park and there were some more arcades.

 

Hidden away behind fruit machines and coin pushers were two jamma cabs.

 

One cab had Bubble Bobble installed, which was a nice surprise!  The monitor wasn’t working on the other cab, but it was running Space Invaders ’91.

 

Sunderland – Roker Amusements

I also made the short trip down the coastal road to Sunderland.  The main arcades along the seafront were disappointing even by UK standards.  Of more interest was Roker Amusements, a bit further along the seafront and down by the beach.

 

All the shutters were down, it wasn’t until I was virtually outside the arcade that I could see it was actually open.

I was pleased to see Tokyo Wars, an old favourite.  I last played this in Decks Tokyo Beach, Odaiba.  There can’t be too many of these left now.

 

I asked whether the pinball machines were broken or if they could be switched on for me.  The owner grumbled something incomprehensible and the machines remained off!

 

The machines looked pretty tired and the salty sea air hasn’t been kind to them.  A strange little arcade, but it was cool to see these old machines!

 

Gateshead Metrocentre – Namco Funscape